my little forest

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my little forest
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dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46207
Location: yes

Posted: Thu Nov 17, 22 2:36 pm Post subject:
Hard fern Blechnum spicant

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46207
Location: yes

Posted: Thu Nov 17, 22 4:03 pm Post subject:
oops the photo i posted was the reject rather than the crisp one that looks like the one in the id guide:lol: hey ho, i have learnt how to name a fern hard does make sense as the edges of the leaflet things are smooth rather than feathery fern guide was helpful

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15966

Posted: Fri Nov 18, 22 10:26 am Post subject:
Thanks for that guide Dpack. We have Harts Tongue Fern, Broad buckler fern, and a variation of it, Intermediate Polypody, Male fern, and bracken in the woods.

sgt.colon

Joined: 27 Jul 2009
Posts: 7380
Location: Just south of north.

Posted: Fri Nov 18, 22 11:09 am Post subject:
Thanks DPack. It's a shame it wasn't more in the public eye back in the 70's, we might have been in a better position now. I think I only really knew about it sometime in the late 90's. Were you trying to down a rabbit with the acorns?

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46207
Location: yes

Posted: Fri Nov 18, 22 1:47 pm Post subject:

no bunnies, the last hares and larks went when the dairy farm hay fields changed post 1968 FaM and rather than a traditional "by hand"hay cut in august a change to a for cash crop with a mower in early june

too many dogs for bunnies now, and there are few in the entire area, i cannot think of a rabbit rich place within 10 miles of my little forest
even "bunny wood" has no bunnies

thinking about it, it is one of the most bunnylite places i have known well with a history of at least a few bunnies in the past
there were a few, last one i saw, or saw sign of, was the one flushed by my foster greyhound about 30yrs ago

when i was a kid the pet hutch bunnies of pals did get visits from wild ones(more bunnyporn than watership down)
not seen any trace in a long time

not much sigh of grey squizzers either, 25 yrs ago there were quite a few at the top of the clough

plenty of scope for raptors and owls on the vertical bits

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15966

Posted: Sat Nov 19, 22 10:01 am Post subject:

Rabbits have reduced a lot over the last 20 years since we had the woods. I think there have been several diseases; myxy and a hemorrhagic disease which has virtually wiped them out. We have seen a few this year after virtually no sightings for years. Raptors have increased over that time as well. We do get hares though. As for grey squirrels, we still have too many of them. They fight back with raptors, unlike rabbits.

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46207
Location: yes

Posted: Sat Nov 19, 22 12:31 pm Post subject:

the auger awaits a proper sharpening and the poison is made for the job, it even has it's own squirter to fill the holes

that will be a spring mission, if i plan it well i might do a couple of days with a sly hammock bivvy(slopes are fine if you have trees and a hammock)
moider a few misplaced things, make some notes and take some hi res snaps
as it seems to be working, recording how it was done and what stage it is at might help those with similar opportunities or problems

getting permissions to re wildwood "wasteland" is a nightmare and can be counterproductive if somebody realizes they "own" some bit of land that has a potential"value"

25 fruit trees 3 yrs or so and several hundred hours of diplomacy etc
another 3 acres of mixed forest, a few days planning and 3 hrs chucking stuff in the rain

vector for seeds is queen(so is poison if required)

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15966

Posted: Sun Mar 12, 23 8:16 am Post subject:
Someone was asking about which trees to put in a similar bit of land they owned on a FB group I belong to, so suggested your seed lobbing Dpack. That way the trees grow where they are happy.

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46207
Location: yes

Posted: Sat May 20, 23 2:34 pm Post subject:

dont ask just do it

my little forest is heading for a bit over 10 acres, if i include the "groves" in random places, i have rather special maths skills but basics baffle me

would ten acres be about 2% of what they have managed?

if it is and one silly bloke can do it for no money etc

other inhabitants of the ds village have planted, restored and maintained more acres than me

if a few of us can manage that sort of thing as individuals, there must be reasons for "official" schemes being so incompetent

re the FB folk and their new planting, big pockets and handbags(maybe a 100 litre bergan centurion for planned collections) and keen eyes for collecting whatever, wherever and whenever you can to give diversity and genetic resilience.

boots on soil with a poking thing is a good way to know more about what might colonize each bit and if that bit needs nanny plants to give nurture to the next stage

what works might be surprising, diversity can be reinforced once you find out what is alive after the first decade or so

if you can get them to ask/show and tell, i am happy to answer about how this one has progressed and what might work for their patch

might work is better than might not work if they plan on doing it properly

it took me 2 decades to start to work out how to do it, maybe i can save them a bit of time after another 3 more

i recon it is similar to "rewilding" but at least a thousand times faster and it is likely to be more diverse and resilient than what grows from "legacy" flora alone
legacy flora was a survivor, so far, in a nearby place which might be quite different to the new place to be wooded and to future conditions

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15966

Posted: Sun May 21, 23 7:28 am Post subject:

That article isn't completely true. I have found the Forestry Commission extremely helpful about natural regeneration. We use it almost exclusively in our wood; the only planting in the last 10 years has been transplants from our own garden (2 miles away) and our sons (15 miles away). I am hoping one day to get round to getting cuttings or seeds from a local wood (about 3 miles) of wild service trees, so ensure they have at least 2 local homes.

Over the 20 years we have been working our wood, the paperwork has become less and less about explaining what we will do/are doing and filling in columns of figures. There is a section for felling for natural regeneration now, but haven't filled in a grant application for management lately, so don't know how that is going to view it.

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46207
Location: yes

Posted: Mon Jul 15, 24 8:02 am Post subject:

a bit more expensive than mine

the 30 to 50 yrs later thing seems about right

from a degraded environment back to a semi natural one takes time as well as planning (sort of) and planting (seeds are good) things that might be suitable in that landscape, some will be, other species will move in over the next few decades

at a guess my one might take 150 yrs to look "natural", although most of the current local dog walkers i talked to had no idea that the trees were "new" and that for centuries that hillside had been treeless and low in diversity
thinking about it most of the public do not notice much about" outdoors "
even if they pass through it every day walking a mutt

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46207
Location: yes

Posted: Mon Jul 15, 24 6:24 pm Post subject:

thinking about planning for the future

out of at least 30 oak varieties that originated in places ranging from almost tropical to almost arctic some might do ok long term where they got scattered
other trees, probably 30% originate from even more varied places

so far it seems a decent strategy and is creating a temperate rain forest, perhaps not the original one, but it is starting to gain the diversity and some of the species expected as it creates soil and traps moisture

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15966

Posted: Tue Jul 16, 24 6:24 am Post subject:

Along a road near our wood about a 15m strip has been clear felled as ash trees in the mix were a danger to the road. Of course the locals were up in arms and our local Councillor called me up (as her woodland unofficial adviser) and I assured her that it would regenerate in a few years. They have left some high cut coppice stools along the edge of the road so they will screen the rest in a few years anyway. One area of our wood was heavily thinned in the 1980s and you wouldn't know now that it had ever been touched.

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